June 17, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1427

KARACHI, June 16: Dr Salman Shah, adviser to the prime minister on finance and economic affairs, has said Pakistan will become major manufacturing country of the world with the high economic growth ranging from 6 to 8pc and it will slash the poverty significantly.

Speaking at the Asia Conferences, organised by the Dawn Group of Newspapers on Friday, the adviser said that economic scenario had changed during last six years.

The topic of the inaugural session was “Fund Managers: Pakistan’s Capital Market” and most of the speakers observed that Pakistan had great potential to invite the international funds flowing world over, however, a number of steps suggested for both the fund managers and regulators for stabilising the market.

Dr Shah said that six years before the profit of the Karachi Stock Exchange was Rs30bn and the KSE-100 index was just at 1,200-level and in April 2006 the index crossed the 11,000-barrier and the profits reached to Rs250bn.

He said the bank credits to the private sector had also multiplied and in the outgoing fiscal year Rs450bn were consumed by the private sector. The government had made record high allocation for infrastructure development to gear up the economy, he added.

He said the 6-8pc high economic growth would reduce the poverty to half in next 15 years. Discussing the share business, he said that we needed a lot of IPOs in the future.

The other speakers said that the country had enormous potential to grow in mutual fund sector. Kalim Aziz, senior analyst at Kairos Investment Management, London, said how outsiders look inside Pakistan was important. He said the demand economy of the country was very attractive for the investors.

He said the key driver of markets was the liquidity. “How much liquidity is available is very important for the growth. If the interest rate is low more liquidity will be available while the higher interest rate will develop pressure on liquidity,” he added. He said India was a good example of the demand economy. “Any company which claims that it has global operation has stakes in India and that is why asset management is vibrant in that country,” he said and added that the performance of the emerging market was liquidity driven.

The CEO AKD Securities Nadeem Naqvi said that for the first time in the human history one third population of the world was involved in the industrialisation. Earlier the industrialisations were limited to few nations influencing much lesser population.

He said Pakistan required aligning with the two giants India and China. “These countries are neighbor to Pakistan and the economic alignment will produce favorable results for the country. This should be taken seriously and we should not miss this train”.

He said that Pakistan had natural resources essential for growth of the economy but seriously lacked skilled people.

“We will remain slaves of the knowledge-based economy if we fail to promote education and produce skilled workforce, he said.Mutual Fund Association of Pakistan chairman Najam Ali briefly discussed the performance of the mutual funds. He said the growth was satisfactory as the total fund reached Rs167 billion this year compared to Rs124bn in April 2005.

Earlier, Dawn Group of Newspapers CEO Hameed Haroon welcomed the participants and expressed hope that the series of Asia Conferences would help give a better understanding of the economy.